Chapter IV. The Print of a Hand

(Tuesday, September 11; 9.30 a.m.)

A few minutes after we had returned to the living-room Doctor Doremus, the Chief Medical Examiner, arrived, jaunty and energetic. Immediately in his train came three other men, one of whom carried a bulky camera and a folded tripod. These were Captain Dubois and Detective Bellamy, finger-print experts, and Peter Quackenbush, the official photographer.

“Well, well, well!” exclaimed Doctor Doremus. “Quite a gathering of the clans. More trouble, eh? … I wish your friends, Inspector, would choose a more respectable hour for their little differences. This early rising upsets my liver.”

He shook hands with everybody in a brisk, businesslike manner.

“Where’s the body?” he demanded breezily, looking about the room. He caught sight of the girl on the davenport. “Ah! A lady.”

Stepping quickly forward, he made a rapid examination of the dead girl, scrutinizing her neck and fingers, moving her arms and head to determine the condition of rigor mortis^[22], and finally unflexing her stiffened limbs and laying her out straight on the long cushions, preparatory to a more detailed necropsy.

The rest of us moved toward the bedroom, and Heath motioned to the finger-print men to follow.

“Go over everything,” he told them. “But take a special look at this jewel-case and the handle of this poker, and give that document-box in the other room a close up-and-down.”

“Right,” assented Captain Dubois. “We’ll begin in here while the doc’s busy in the other room.” And he and Bellamy set to work.

Our interest naturally centred on the Captain’s labors. For fully five minutes we watched him inspecting the twisted steel sides of the jewel-case and the smooth, polished handle of the poker. He held the objects gingerly by their edges, and, placing a jeweller’s glass in his eye, flashed his pocket-light on every square inch of them. At length he put them down, scowling.

“No finger-prints here,” he announced. “Wiped clean.”

“I mighta known it,” grumbled Heath. “It was a professional job, all right.” He turned to the other expert. “Found anything, Bellamy?”

“Nothing to help,” was the grumpy reply. “A few old smears with dust over ’em.”

“Looks like a washout,” Heath commented irritably; “though I’m hoping for something in the other room.”

At this moment Doctor Doremus came into the bedroom and, taking a sheet from the bed, returned to the davenport and covered the body of the murdered girl. Then he snapped shut his case, and putting on his hat at a rakish angle, stepped forward with the air of a man in great haste to be on his way.

“Simple case of strangulation from behind,” he said, his words running together. “Digital bruises about the front of the throat; thumb bruises in the sub-occipital region. Attack must have been unexpected. A quick, competent job though deceased evidently battled a little.”

“How do you suppose her dress became torn, doctor?” asked Vance.

“Oh, that? Can’t tell. She may have done it herself—instinctive motions of clutching for air.”

“Not likely though, what?”

“Why not? The dress was torn and the bouquet was ripped off, and the fellow who was choking her had both hands on her throat. Who else could’ve done it?”

Vance shrugged his shoulders, and began lighting a cigarette.

Heath, annoyed by his apparently inconsequential interruption, put the next question.

“Don’t those marks on the fingers mean that her rings were stripped off?”

“Possibly. They’re fresh abrasions. Also, there’s a couple of lacerations on the left wrist and slight contusions on the thenar eminence, indicating that a bracelet may have been forcibly pulled over her hand.”

“That fits O. K.,” pronounced Heath, with satisfaction. “And it looks like they snatched a pendant of some kind off her neck.”

“Probably,” indifferently agreed Doctor Doremus. “The piece of chain had cut into her flesh a little behind the right shoulder.”

“And the time?”

“Nine or ten hours ago. Say, about eleven-thirty—maybe a little before. Not after midnight, anyway.” He had been teetering restlessly on his toes. “Anything else?”

Heath pondered.

“I guess that’s all, doc,” he decided. “I’ll get the body to the mortuary right away. Let’s have the post-mortem as soon as you can.”

“You’ll get a report in the morning.” And despite his apparent eagerness to be off, Doctor Doremus stepped into the bedroom, and shook hands with Heath and Markham and Inspector Moran before he hurried out.

Heath followed him to the door, and I heard him direct the officer outside to telephone the Department of Public Welfare to send an ambulance at once for the girl’s body.

“I positively adore that official archiater of yours,” Vance said to Markham. “Such detachment! Here are you stewing most distressingly over the passing of one damsel fair and frail, and that blithe medicus^[23] is worrying only over a sluggish liver brought on by early rising.”

“What has he to be upset over?” complained Markham. “The newspapers are not riding him with spurs. … And by the way, what was the point of your questions about the torn dress?”

Vance lazily inspected the tip of his cigarette.

“Consider,” he said. “The lady was evidently taken by surprise; for, had there been a struggle beforehand, she would not have been strangled from behind while sitting down. Therefore, her gown and corsage were undoubtedly intact at the time she was seized. But—despite the conclusion of your dashing Paracelsus—the damage to her toilet was not of a nature that could have been self-inflicted in her struggle for air. If she had felt the constriction of the gown across her breast, she would have snatched the bodice itself by putting her fingers inside the band. But, if you noticed, her bodice was intact; the only thing that had been torn was the deep lace flounce on the outside; and it had been torn, or rather ripped, by a strong lateral pull; whereas, in the circumstances, any wrench on her part would have been downward or outward.”

Inspector Moran was listening intently, but Heath seemed restless and impatient; apparently he regarded the torn gown as irrelevant to the simple main issue.

“Moreover,” Vance went on, “there is the corsage. If she herself had torn it off while being strangled, it would doubtless have fallen to the floor; for, remember, she offered considerable resistance. Her body was twisted sidewise; her knee was drawn up, and one slipper had been kicked off. Now, no bunch of silken posies is going to remain in a lady’s lap during such a commotion. Even when ladies sit still, their gloves and hand-bags and handkerchiefs and programmes and serviettes are forever sliding off of their laps on to the floor, don’t y’ know.”

“But if your argument’s correct,” protested Markham, “then the tearing of the lace and the snatching off of the corsage could have been done only after she was dead. And I can’t see any object in such senseless vandalism.”

“Neither can I,” sighed Vance. “It’s all devilish queer.”

Heath looked up at him sharply. “That’s the second time you’ve said that. But there’s nothing what you’d call queer about this mess. It is a straight-away case.” He spoke with an overtone of insistence, like a man arguing against his own insecurity of opinion. “The dress might’ve been torn almost any time,” he went on stubbornly. “And the flower might’ve got caught in the lace of her skirt so it couldn’t roll off.”

“And how would you explain the jewel-case, Sergeant?” asked Vance.

“Well, the fellow might’ve tried the poker, and then, finding it wouldn’t work, used his jimmy.”

“If he had the efficient jimmy,” countered Vance, “why did he go to the trouble of bringing the silly poker from the living-room?”

The Sergeant shook his head perplexedly.

“You never can tell why some of these crooks act the way they do.”

“Tut, tut!” Vance chided him. “There should be no such word as ‘never’ in the bright lexicon of detecting.”

Heath regarded him sharply. “Was there anything else that struck you as queer?” His subtle doubts were welling up again.

“Well, there’s the lamp on the table in the other room.”

We were standing near the archway between the two rooms, and Heath turned quickly and looked blankly at the fallen lamp.

“I don’t see anything queer about that.”

“It has been upset—eh, what?” suggested Vance.

“What if it has?” Heath was frankly puzzled. “Damn near everything in this apartment has been knocked crooked.”

“Ah! But there’s a reason for most of the other things having been disturbed—like the drawers and pigeonholes and closets and vases. They all indicate a search; they’re consistent with a raid for loot. But that lamp, now, d’ ye see, doesn’t fit into the picture. It’s a false note. It was standing on the opposite end of the table to where the murder was committed, at least five feet away; and it couldn’t possibly have been knocked over in the struggle. … No, it won’t do. It’s got no business being upset, any more than that pretty mirror over the gate-legged table has any business being broken. That’s why it’s queer.”

“What about those chairs and the little table?” asked Heath, pointing to two small gilded chairs which had been overturned, and a fragile tip-table that lay on its side near the piano.

“Oh, they fit into the ensemble,” returned Vance. “They’re all light pieces of furniture which could easily have been knocked over, or thrown aside, by the hasty gentleman who rifled these rooms.”

“The lamp might’ve been knocked over in the same way,” argued Heath.

Vance shook his head. “Not tenable, Sergeant. It has a solid bronze base, and isn’t at all top-heavy; and being set well back on the table, it wasn’t in any one’s way. … That lamp was upset deliberately.”

The Sergeant was silent for a while. Experience had taught him not to underestimate Vance’s observations; and, I must confess, as I looked at the lamp lying on its side on the end of the library-table, well removed from any of the other disordered objects in the room, Vance’s argument seemed to possess considerable force. I tried hard to fit it into a hasty reconstruction of the crime, but was utterly unable to do so.

“Anything else that don’t seem to fit into the picture?” Heath at length asked.

Vance pointed with his cigarette toward the clothes-closet in the living-room. This closet was alongside of the foyer, in the corner near the Boule cabinet, directly opposite to the end of the davenport.

“You might let your mind dally a moment with the condition of that clothes-press,” suggested Vance carelessly. “You will note that, though the door’s ajar, the contents have not been touched. And it’s about the only area in the apartment that hasn’t been disturbed.”

Heath walked over and looked into the closet.

“Well, anyway, I’ll admit that’s queer,” he finally conceded.

Vance had followed him indolently, and stood gazing over his shoulder.

“And my word!” he exclaimed suddenly. “The key’s on the inside of the lock. Fancy that, now! One can’t lock a closet door with the key on the inside—can one, Sergeant?”

“The key may not mean anything,” Heath observed hopefully. “Maybe the door was never locked. Anyhow, we’ll find out about that pretty soon. I’m holding the maid outside, and I’m going to have her on the carpet as soon as the Captain finishes his job here.”

He turned to Dubois, who, having completed his search for finger-prints in the bedroom, was now inspecting the piano.

“Any luck yet?”

The Captain shook his head.

“Gloves,” he answered succinctly.

“Same here,” supplemented Bellamy gruffly, on his knees before the escritoire.

Vance, with a sardonic smile, turned and walked to the window, where he stood looking out and smoking placidly, as if his entire interest in the case had evaporated.

At this moment the door from the main hall opened, and a short thin little man, with gray hair and a scraggly gray beard, stepped inside and stood blinking against the vivid sunlight.

“Good morning, Professor,” Heath greeted the newcomer. “Glad to see you. I’ve got something nifty, right in your line.”

Deputy-Inspector Conrad Brenner was one of that small army of obscure, but highly capable, experts who are connected with the New York Police Department, and who are constantly being consulted on abstruse technical problems, but whose names and achievements rarely get into the public prints. His specialty was locks and burglars’ tools; and I doubt if, even among those exhaustively pains-taking criminologists of the University of Lausanne, there was a more accurate reader of the evidential signs left by the implements of house-breakers. In appearance and bearing he was like a withered little college professor.^[24] His black, unpressed suit was old-fashioned in cut; and he wore a very high stiff collar, like a fin-de-siècle^[25] clergyman, with a narrow black string tie. His gold-rimmed spectacles were so thick-lensed that the pupils of his eyes gave the impression of acute belladonna poisoning.

When Heath had spoken to him, he merely stood staring with a sort of detached expectancy; he seemed utterly unaware that there was any one else in the room. The Sergeant, evidently familiar with the little man’s idiosyncrasies of manner, did not wait for a response, but started at once for the bedroom.

“This way, please, Professor,” he directed cajolingly, going to the dressing-table and picking up the jewel-case. “Take a squint at this, and tell me what you see.”

Inspector Brenner followed Heath, without looking to right or left, and, taking the jewel-case, went silently to the window and began to examine it. Vance, whose interest seemed suddenly to be reawakened, came forward and stood watching him.

For fully five minutes the little expert inspected the case, holding it within a few inches of his myopic eyes. Then he lifted his glance to Heath and winked several times rapidly.

“Two instruments were used in opening this case.” His voice was small and high-pitched, but there was in it an undeniable quality of authority. “One bent the lid and made several fractures on the baked enamel. The other was, I should say, a steel chisel of some kind, and was used to break the lock. The first instrument, which was blunt, was employed amateurishly, at the wrong angle of leverage; and the effort resulted only in twisting the overhang of the lid. But the steel chisel was inserted with a knowledge of the correct point of oscillation, where a minimum of leverage would produce the counteracting stress necessary to displace the lock-bolts.”

“A professional job?” suggested Heath.

“Highly so,” answered the Inspector, again blinking. “That is to say, the forcing of the lock was professional. And I would even go so far as to advance the opinion that the instrument used was one especially constructed for such illegal purposes.”

“Could this have done the job?” Heath held out the poker.

The other looked at it closely, and turned it over several times.

“It might have been the instrument that bent the cover, but it was not the one used for prying open the lock. This poker is cast iron and would have snapped under any great pressure; whereas this box is of cold rolled eighteen-gauge steel plate, with an inset cylinder pin-tumbler lock taking a paracentric key. The leverage force necessary to distort the flange sufficiently to lift the lid could have been made only by a steel chisel.”

“Well, that’s that.” Heath seemed well satisfied with Inspector Brenner’s conclusion. “I’ll send the box down to you, Professor, and you can let me know what else you find out.”

“I’ll take it along, if you have no objection.” And the little man tucked it under his arm and shuffled out without another word.

Heath grinned at Markham. “Queer bird. He ain’t happy unless he’s measuring jimmy marks on doors and windows and things. He couldn’t wait till I sent him the box. He’ll hold it lovingly on his lap all the way down in the subway, like a mother with a baby.”

Vance was still standing near the dressing-table, gazing perplexedly into space.

“Markham,” he said, “the condition of that jewel-case is positively astounding. It’s unreasonable, illogical—insane. It complicates the situation most damnably. That steel box simply couldn’t have been chiselled open by a professional burglar … and yet, don’t y’ know, it actually was.”

Before Markham could reply, a satisfied grunt from Captain Dubois attracted our attention.

“I’ve got something for you, Sergeant,” he announced.

We moved expectantly into the living-room. Dubois was bending over the end of the library-table almost directly behind the place where Margaret Odell’s body had been found. He took out an insufflator, which was like a very small hand-bellows, and blew a fine light-yellow powder evenly over about a square foot of the polished rosewood surface of the table-top. Then he gently blew away the surplus powder, and there appeared the impression of a human hand distinctly registered in saffron. The bulb of the thumb and each fleshy hummock between the joints of the fingers and around the palm stood out like tiny circular islands. All the papillary ridges were clearly discernible. The photographer then hooked his camera to a peculiar adjustable tripod and, carefully focusing his lens, took two flash-light pictures of the hand-mark.

“This ought to do.” Dubois was pleased with his find. “It’s the right hand—a clear print—and the guy who made it was standing right behind the dame. … And it’s the newest print in the place.”

“What about this box?” Heath pointed to the black document-box on the table near the overturned lamp.

“Not a mark—wiped clean.”

Dubois began putting away his paraphernalia.

“I say, Captain Dubois,” interposed Vance, “did you take a good look at the inside door-knob of that clothes-press?”

The man swung about abruptly, and gave Vance a glowering look.

“People ain’t in the habit of handling the inside knobs of closet doors. They open and shut closets from the outside.”

Vance raised his eyebrows in simulated astonishment.

“Do they, now, really?—Fancy that! … Still, don’t y’ know, if one were inside the closet, one couldn’t reach the outside knob.”

“The people I know don’t shut themselves in clothes-closets.” Dubois’s tone was ponderously sarcastic.

“You positively amaze me!” declared Vance. “All the people I know are addicted to the habit—a sort of daily pastime, don’t y’ know.”

Markham, always diplomatic, intervened.

“What idea have you about that closet, Vance?”

“Alas! I wish I had one,” was the dolorous answer. “It’s because I can’t, for the life of me, make sense of its neat and orderly appearance that I’m so interested in it. Really, y’ know, it should have been artistically looted.”

Heath was not entirely free from the same vague misgivings that were disturbing Vance, for he turned to Dubois and said:

“You might go over the knob, Captain. As this gentleman says, there’s something funny about the condition of that closet.”

Dubois, silent and surly, went to the closet door and sprayed his yellow powder over the inside knob. When he had blown the loose particles away, he bent over it with his magnifying-glass. At length he straightened up, and gave Vance a look of ill-natured appraisal.

“There’s fresh prints on it, all right,” he grudgingly admitted; “and unless I’m mistaken they were made by the same hand as those on the table. Both thumb-marks are ulnar loops, and the index-fingers are both whorl patterns. … Here, Pete,” he ordered the photographer, “make some shots of that knob.”

When this had been done, Dubois, Bellamy, and the photographer left us.

A few moments later, after an interchange of pleasantries, Inspector Moran also departed. At the door he passed two men in the white uniform of internes, who had come to take away the girl’s body.